The federal police force says it has so far received over a dozen promising leads on alleged Chinese police stations in the Montreal area since publicly identifying them last week.
“We’re currently at 15 serious tips received in relation to the presumed Chinese police stations in Montreal and Brossard,” RCMP Sergeant Charles Poirier said in a March 13 French statement.
“We’re at the analysis stage of these tips and once again we encourage all the victims and witnesses of illegal activities, and all the individuals being affected by pressures, intimidation or threats to reach out to us.”
The RCMP admitted publicly last week it was investigating two alleged Chinese police stations in Montreal and its suburb of Brossard.
The two entities catering to the Chinese community and newly arrived immigrants are the Centre Sino-Québec de la Rive-Sud (CSQRS) in Brossard and the Service à la famille chinoise du Grand Montréal (SFCGM) in Montreal’s Chinatown.
Li attended a National Day celebration with top Chinese Communist Party officials in Beijing in 2018.
A now-deleted page on the CSQRS website says that she was invited to the event by then Chinese Premier Li Keqiang.
Brossard’s Mayor Doreen Assaad said last week she had also referred Li to the province’s elections director over concerns of breaking electoral law during the 2021 municipal elections.
Neither Li nor Assaad have responded to requests for comment.
Li’s activities are subsidized by different levels of governments and she has associated with a number of elected officials.
Public Safety Minister Marco Mendicino, International Trade Minister Mary Ng, and Liberal MPs Alexandra Mendes and Han Dong have all had dealings with Li.
Requests for comments from the ministers have not been answered.
The RCMP hasn’t laid any charges so far with regards to Chinese police stations in Canada and has chosen to take an overt approach to disrupt their activities.
Sgt. Poirier said the RCMP reiterates it will take “all means available” to counter foreign interference in Quebec and Canada.
The force said last week its police actions are aimed at “detecting and disrupting” the “foreign state-backed criminal activities.”
RCMP Deputy Commissioner Michael Duheme told the House of Commons Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs on March 2 that the other Chinese police stations in Ontario and B.C. had stopped operating.
The RCMP sent an overt presence at the sites to disrupt the activities and Duheme expressed satisfaction with this strategy.
“Any time you have representatives from the embassy whose law enforcement liaison officer comes up to us and is not pleased with the actions we took, I think that’s a sign that we did our job,” he said.
